Romantic Ireland. M. F. Mansfield
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LAND, KERRY.
paid out of the land. The eight or nine acres of reclaimed bog-land, which often constitute the tenants’ holding, can produce nothing in the nature of rent after the occupants have secured any sort of subsistence. But that is only half the case. There is, or is supposed to be, another very large class of holdings in the poorest districts, which cannot even produce a bare subsistence for an average family. It is possible that the demerits of bog-land are greatly exaggerated. When reclaimed it is, it is said, in a sense, easy to till and productive. But, on the other hand, it rapidly impoverishes itself and deteriorates by periodical flooding—the curse of all the west—and its productivity is but comparative.
On the De Freyne estate at Castlerea there are hundreds of acres of rich grassland with scarcely a house upon them, “cleared” years ago by the landlord when prices were high and there was a chance of profitable sales—which sales, however, apparently did not materialize. On the other hand, there are hundreds of acres of bog-land, with the little cabins crowding close upon one another as far as the eye can see, which certainly indicates that there is a demand for this class of holding. Rents are not high, as rents go elsewhere; but they cannot be paid out of the land, and the sons and the daughters, in order to live, must leave it. In cottage after cottage one may hear the same story. An old man and his wife with one daughter left at home; two sons in England; two daughters in America—all sending over a pound now and then to keep the roof over their parents’ heads. And these people cleared the land themselves. “It was all red bog, sorr, like yon,” they tell you.
A peasant in the townland of Cloomaul gives these figures. He is sixty-seven years old, and until 1860 the rent of his holding was £5 a year. In 1860 it was raised to £11 5s. 0d.; twenty-eight years later the Land Commission reduced it to £6 5s. 0d. Meanwhile great became the stimulus to emigration, and once again the old story of “me sons beyond the sea” is given out. In some sections there is scarce a young man or a young woman to be seen. The evictions, that throughout Ireland raise the countryside as nothing else does, only bring together, with a few rare exceptions, a band of women, children, and old men. The hay harvest in England calls many of the able-bodied away temporarily, and the colonies and the United States call those who would go farther afield.
The moral aspect of the whole problem is thus put in a nutshell by the economists and Ireland’s well-wishers:
“Irish landlordism to-day represents little more than an enormous tax upon the industry of the people. It does nothing in return for the money it receives. It is, to a very large extent, non-resident. Much of it is in a bankrupt condition.”
And no wonder, when one remembers the vast proportion that is “spent out of the country.”
Mr. T. W. Russell, M.P., contributed a recent paper to the New Liberal Review on “Disturbed Ireland.” In it he takes a very gloomy view of the present situation. He says that a grave crisis is rapidly approaching, which will shake things to their foundations in Ireland; and points out that since 1868 the whole of the Irish governing class has been disestablished and disendowed. Before that year, Ireland was governed by its Protestant landlord garrison. First by one measure of reform and then by another, every cartridge has been withdrawn from the bandoliers of the garrison, which is now as powerless as it was once all-powerful. England is dealing with an absolutely crimeless country. White gloves are the order of the day, blank court calendars are reported all over the country, yet boycotting is wide-spread, and intimidation is rampant. A conspiracy to boycott is punishable, but boycotting is not in itself an offence. Hence the great part of the country has passed under the dominion of the United Irish League. What the future will actually bring forth for “poor, distressed Ireland” it is impossible to predict, but it may be presumed that other lands will go on enriching themselves by the accumulation, as citizens, of the flower of Ireland’s flock, and that this is in fact but a natural enough thinning-out process, which has obtained among other nations before now.
What the further and yet dimmer future will be, no one can tell; but the above seems a plausible opinion which has much to justify it, both in precedent of the past and with due regard to the racial characteristics of the people.
Others hold out more hope. The Right Hon. George Wyndham, M. P., chief secretary for Ireland, stands sponsor (1903) for the fact that it is the wish of the people at large that “the evening star of the Empire, shedding a sad light in the west, shall rise toward the zenith and shine out from amid the brightest constellations in the imperial empyrean.”
With Mr. Wyndham’s appointment to the secretaryship, it is thought by many Ireland’s great revival is at hand.
Already opposing partisans have begun to realize that the genius of the Celt disposes the Irish to take kindly to coöperative efforts for their welfare; and more stimulating than all else will be found to be the great Celtic revival among all classes.
Forty years ago the great Protestant revival in Ulster had for its object, or at least its main object, a passionate and more or less selfish personal aspiration.
To-day the movement is even greater, while it leaves religion aside, and is essentially national.
Study has taken the place of idleness; grammars have replaced playing cards. On St. Patrick’s Day the Irish celebrate the restoration of their ancient language to its ancient dignity. The public-houses are shut up instead of being crowded. A new hope, a new motive, a new incentive—all these are visible in Ireland. They find practicable expression in the enthusiasm with which the Irish language is being studied everywhere.
This latter may be a pure fad, but it is in no way an unhealthy one. How far the chief secretary’s attitude actually goes in behalf of Ireland, his own words will best tell.
In the House of Commons he asked:
“Was it necessary to dread any dire political consequences from the spread of the Celtic renaissance? He thought the object, the brightening of the intellect of the Irish child, was a good one; and he did not think the political consequences would be very harmful. If, as a result of such instruction, Irish lads in fifty years gave up the practice of singing, on certain anniversaries, inspiring ditties which enjoin the propriety of kicking the Crown or the Pope into this or that river, and preferred to sing the Irish song:
“ ‘Oh! where, Kincora, is Brian the great,
Where is the beauty that once was thine,
Where are the princes and nobles that sate
To feast in thine halls and drink the red wine?’
he could not see that the change would be politically deleterious. They could not make a Scotsman into a better engineer by confiscating his heirloom; and their language was an heirloom of the Irish. Its usefulness was not immediately obvious; but that was true of most household gods, and yet a tutelary reverence for household gods had often nerved heart and hand for utilitarian contests. There was no heresy to the Union in permitting to Ireland that which they promoted in Scotland and in Wales; on the contrary, it was an article of the Unionist creed that within the ambit of the Empire there should be room for the coöperation of races, maintaining each its memory of its own past as a point of departure for converging assaults on the problems of the future.”
There can be no doubt but that the chief secretary for Ireland has been baptized with the spirit of the Irish revival. He believes in Ireland. He loves the Irish people. To him the witty and mercurial Celt is much more sympathetic than the more stolid Englishman. Ireland, like the fair damozel in Spenser’s poem, has a singular fascination for the Sir Calidores and Sir Artegalds who stray within range of the magic of her charms.
As to what were the real beginnings of Ireland, and whence came the original Celt, we must for a time longer, it seems, remain in doubt. The more the pity, for the character of a people is in large measure due to inheritance. Here, for centuries long gone past, there was isolation in manners, customs, and forms of government. But then, Ireland being insular, the chances were that many people of a different race might have mixed their blood with that of the early settlers. Still, there never was a country which delighted more in legends and of which the past was more legendary. And, above all, the Irishman always respects these